TigerHawk

TigerHawk (ti*ger*hawk): n. 1. The title of this blog and the nom de plume of its founding blogger; 2. A deep bow to the Princeton Tigers and the Iowa Hawkeyes; 3. The nickname for Iowa's Hawkeye logo. Posts include thoughts of the day on international affairs, politics, things that strike us as hilarious and personal observations. The opinions we express are our own, and not those of each other, our employers, our relatives, our dead ancestors, or unrelated people of similar ethnicity.

Thursday, July 28, 2011

Evening beer post

By TigerHawk at 7/28/2011 09:11:00 PM

In recent years I have become quite taken by craft-brewed India Pale Ale, and almost always default to it when it is available on tap. There are several brands in my fridge.

Tuesday, July 26, 2011

A couple of minor and obvious debt crisis observations

By TigerHawk at 7/26/2011 10:42:00 PM

A couple of fairly obvious debt crisis observations that nevertheless I have not seen elsewhere:

1. There is an argument popular in liberal circles that because the United States is virtually alone in requiring a separate political process to raise the authorized national debt we should change our system. The objection is that our system allows for the making of political mischief after the actual budget is done and legislated. There are, however, at least two reasons why that argument is not quite so brilliant as the big government liberals propose.

First, the other rich countries with the supposedly better approach to debt have parliamentary systems. The executive function is a mere extension of the legislature, so an incremental check makes no theoretical sense. In our system the executive branch is an entirely different source of power. It issues bonds, collects taxes, and coins money, but in each case only with the particular authorization of the legislative branch, the power of which countervails the executive. It is entirely reasonable for the legislative branch to put in place whatever mechanisms it deems reasonable to ensure that the executive branch does not act without authorization. Indeed, given the history that presidents of both parties have blown off both the Congress and the Constitution when circumstances warrant, a clear law to confine the President in the matter of burdening our posterity seems like a damned good idea.

Second, corporations that raise money by multiple means and regular issuance (such as in the commercial paper market) often if not almost always operate within an overall debt limit that has to be raised by the board in order for the management to raise more debt than authorized in the aggregate. Why? It is considered good governance for the board to assess and cap the aggregate debt that the corporate can incur, even if the board does not authorize each individual borrowing. That way, the corporation can act flexibly, taking advantage of favorable borrowing opportunities that might come along on very short notice, even as it operates within a budget approved by the board and under a debt limit imposed by the board. Well, if those practices are good governance for public companies, should they not also be true for governments?

2. Judging from the president's speech last night and all the bleating from the press, the freshmen Republicans are nuts, or at least profoundly unreasonable, for sticking to their convictions in the face of a widespread belief in Washington and probably elsewhere that they should "compromise." Hence their unpopularity among establishment politicians of both parties. It seems to me, though, that Washington's "problem" with the freshmen Republicans is precisely that many of them do not care if they are re-elected. They are amateurs doing what they think is right, acting in accordance with the commitments that they made in the campaign, damn the torpedoes. Annoying that might be, but isn't that exactly how big government romantics of all stripes, and especially in the press, believe that politicians ought to behave?

Monday, July 25, 2011

The NFL has mercy on the country

Thank freaking God. What with the debt gridlock, lectures on fiscal probity from the Chinese, the housing slump, permanent unemployment, the war on business, the Euro crisis, the sorry Republican presidential field, and the unreconstructed Vulcan we have in the White House, the country really needs to have a football season.

O'Quiz!!!

By TigerHawk at 7/25/2011 01:47:00 PM

Yes, it has been ages since I have linked the O'Quiz. My bad! I scored a rollicking 7 out of 10, which would be unacceptably lame on a public school pop quiz but almost double the currently prevailing 3.88 average score for this week's O'Quiz.

Post your score in the comments. Even if it sucks. Integrity demands at least that much.

Sunday, July 24, 2011

If you are from New Jersey, Pennsylvania is a tax haven

By TigerHawk at 7/24/2011 10:21:00 PM

There are only 49 states with a lower tax burden than New Jersey. People leave this state for Pennsylvania, which has higher taxes than a mere forty states, to avoid state taxes. I know, I've seen them do it.

Meanwhile, there are only five states with a lower aggregate tax burden than Texas, which has 30% more people than New York (which taxes slightly less aggressively than New Jersey) but which collects 60% less in taxes. Even if you believe that Texas does not do everything right, how can any principled New Yorker not be outraged, or at least ashamed, by the disparity?

Monday, July 18, 2011

A small debt limit factoid

By TigerHawk at 7/18/2011 08:21:00 AM

For those few of you who have not already been to Instapundit this morning, a debt limit factoid to weigh in assessing which side is full of more horse pucky on this subject (an extremely close assessment in any case):

Flashback: Every Dem Senator Including Obama Voted Against Raising Debt Limit In 2006…

Of course, that vote was purely symbolic, insofar as those Democratic senators had no chance of winning their vote absent a filibuster (assuming that was a procedural option for that purpose), and they did not filibuster. But still.

What I would not give for a little bit of intellectual honesty from either side.

Why doesn’t the GOP propose a 5% across-the-board cut in spending? I doubt that very many voters will believe that there’s not 5% that can be cut in any department of the federal government, and compared to the cuts most households have made it’s minor indeed. Then they could do it again next year . . . .

I have thought for a long time that an across-the-board cut might be the only solution within the grasp of our benighted political class. And toss in repeal of 5% of the "Bush tax cuts," just so everybody gets their bit.

Of course, with federal spending now at around 25% of GDP, a 5% reduction in federal spending would in the short term knock at least a point off GDP, which would essentially throw us in to an "official" recession. What incumbent president is going to agree to that heading in to an election year?

A "thank you" that may, or may not, be in order

By TigerHawk at 7/16/2011 03:12:00 PM

The top 1% are now paying more than half of all federal income tax collected by the United States Treasury. That is partly a function of the great progressivity of the "Bush" tax cuts, and partly because the top 1% are earning a higher percentage of the national income today than they did thirty years ago.

The question, of course, is whether this is a reason to thank the top 1% for their great contributions to GDP and the federal budget, or heap opprobrium on them and demand more. Your judgment in that probably depends on whether you believe that affluent people create their wealth, or appropriate it from more deserving people.

Twenty links: Wandering down my Facebook feed

By TigerHawk at 7/16/2011 01:05:00 AM

I have an extremely eclectic group of Facebook friends -- many of whom are actual friends -- from more or less the entire American political landscape. For shits and giggles, the last 20 links on my feed with, er, instacommentary but no judgment.

The United Nations Security Council decides that being nice to the Taliban will make them like us more. Because that worked so well the last time.

Suddenly he was one of the leaders of the Senate. And then he was Massachusetts’ senior senator as well: Ted Kennedy’s death in 2009 removed both a cherished adviser and a giant shadow. Just about everyone who knows Kerry notes how much happier he is now than he was before.

I'm also happier now than I was before Ted Kennedy died, but I think it is a coincidence.

Friday, July 15, 2011

A walk around Austin

By TigerHawk at 7/15/2011 07:32:00 PM

I finished work a little after 3 this afternoon, so I walked north from the Stephen Austin Intercontinental, where I am staying, to the Texas State Capitol and the University of Texas campus. I took in an exhibit at the Harry Ransom Center -- a good idea if you are in town -- bought some souvenirs at the UT Co-op (pronounced the American way, rather than the Harvard way), and had a 512 IPA at Scholz Garten. A few stray pictures of Austin on a hot July afternoon follow...

Will somebody please send the president some flowers?

By TigerHawk at 7/15/2011 11:17:00 AM

The WSJ has an interesting story that claims that in the midst of the debt-ceiling fight there has been some recent restoration of Nancy Pelosi's influence (yes, that is the actual picture accompanying the story -- no married man is going to like that image). Among other delightful bits, there is this:

[I]n a White House meeting, Ms. Pelosi noted that she had sent flowers to former President George W. Bush, despite their heated policy disagreements. That was a way of urging Republicans to show courtesy to Mr. Obama.

Now that we know what the country's senior Democratic legislator believes passes for courtesy to a president of the opposing party, it would be very helpful if some Republican would prove he or she respects President Obama by sending him some flowers. Or, perhaps, something he would actually want. Like a carton of Marlboros. Or some tasty food that Michelle won't let him eat. Or, if he wants to be a bit self-effacing, Paul Ryan could send him a bottle of 2004 Jayer-Gilles Echézeaux du Dessus. Take away the talking point, guys, and have some fun while you're at it!

Tech bubble question of the day

I love Facebook. It is a great service and there is no question that it can be brought public at what normal people would consider an awesome valuation. But I suspect (as Ritholtz does) that the rapid success of Google+ has knocked billions, or even tens of billions, off its potential valuation.

The 21st Century Keeps Getting Better

The implications for this technology are staggering, if in fact true. If they can reproduce this technology on a widespread scale, it could have enormous consequences. For one thing, it'd make fuel exponentially less expensive, and for another, liberals wouldn't be able to claim that a War for Oil is even a thing. It could transform the economy.

I hope to God this news is real. It would ruin my day if it wasn't. Also, apparently it's old news, this article was written in January about something that happened in Sept. 2010.

Thursday, July 14, 2011

Cool post of the day

Barack Obama's health care prevarications

By TigerHawk at 7/14/2011 02:08:00 PM

Ann Althouse notes that Barack Obama pretty much made up the story about his mother's health insurance troubles out of whole cloth. In other words, he lied.

On the one hand, this seems like a larger-than-usual stretching of a personal truth in pursuit of a policy objective. It reminds us that argument by anecdote, at least for complex legislation, is misleading, and that we should look askance at any politician who plays that game. On the other hand, politicians exploit their families, dead or alive, for all sorts of purposes. See, e.g., John Edwards.

Michelle Bachmann's church

By TigerHawk at 7/14/2011 07:38:00 AM

Considering the reluctance of the mainstream media to examine the ideology of candidate Barack Obama's church, the speed with which the "respectable media" has jumped on the strong statements of Michelle Bachmann's Lutheran synod is, well, head-turning. Apparently, the churches of conservatives are legitimate targets but those of liberals are not. Perhaps because, deep down, reporters just don't believe that a liberal politician's church affiliation reflects actual beliefs.

Of course, Republicans who argued that Obama's decades-long association with Jeremiah Wright was a legitimate topic for partisan attacks -- and I was and remain absolutely in their camp -- cannot honestly object when liberals go after the Lutherans, however irritated they might be at the outrageous inconsistency of the media.

The CIA is sneakier than I had thought

The CIA organised a fake vaccination programme in the town where it believed Osama bin Laden was hiding in an elaborate attempt to obtain DNA from the fugitive al-Qaida leader's family, a Guardian investigation has found.

As part of extensive preparations for the raid that killed Bin Laden in May, CIA agents recruited a senior Pakistani doctor to organise the vaccine drive in Abbottabad, even starting the "project" in a poorer part of town to make it look more authentic, according to Pakistani and US officials and local residents.

Not surprisingly, our "friends" the Pakistanis are not amused.

The doctor, Shakil Afridi, has since been arrested by the Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI) for co-operating with American intelligence agents...

The doctor is one of several people suspected of helping the CIA to have been arrested by the ISI, but he is thought to be the only one still in custody.

Pakistan is furious over being kept in the dark about the raid, and the US is angry that the Pakistani investigation appears more focused on finding out how the CIA was able to track down the al-Qaida leader than on how Bin Laden was able to live in Abbottabad for five years.

Props to the CIA for running the op, even if it may not have succeeded in getting Bin Laden family DNA, and brickbats to the Pakistanis taking our foreign aid money without finding Bin Laden in their own backyard. Don't they know they were being bribed?

Afternoon science note: Worms from hell!

After digging holes in the Earth's crust for nearly two decades, Princeton University geoscientist Tullis Onstott is now making headlines for unearthing "worms from hell."

Onstott's research team, which he led with Gaetan Borgonie of the University of Ghent in Belgium, recently made a startling discovery: microscopic roundworms known as nematodes living nearly two-and-a-half miles beneath the Earth's surface in several South African gold mines. The worms are roughly a quarter of the diameter of the head of a pin. Although nematode species have been known to live as far as 20 feet below the surface, scientists generally assumed there was no reason to believe the organisms would be found anywhere near the depths of those found by Onstott's team, he noted.

There is a big difference between 20 feet and 2 1/2 miles. If relatively complex life can survive in that niche, it can survive on other planets. The question is, did life ever get started there?

Leon Panetta and David Petraeus agree... with George Bush

Leon Panetta and David Petraeus agree, the strategic defeat of Al Qaeda is not only possible, it is within reach.

Al-Qaeda's defeat is "within reach," according to Leon Panetta, the US defence secretary, who said that eliminating 10 to 20 of the group's top figures could cripple its ability to strike the West.

Panetta, on his first trip to Afghanistan since taking over at the Pentagon on July 1, told reporters before arriving in Kabul that now was the time - in the wake of the killing of Osama bin Laden in May - to intensify efforts to target al-Qaeda's leadership.

"We're within reach of strategically defeating al-Qaeda and I'm hoping to be able to focus on that, working obviously with my prior agency as well," said Panetta, who ran the CIA until the end of June.

His assessment could stoke the debate in Washington over how soon to pull out the US military from the land where bin Laden's network launched the attacks of September 11, 2001, against the US.

"Now is the moment following what happened with bin Laden, to put maximum pressure on them. Because I do believe that if we continue this effort that we can really cripple al-Qaeda as a threat to [the United States]."

General David Petraeus, who will take over the CIA's top job in September, told reporters that he agreed with Panetta's assessment that strategic defeat of al-Qaeda was possible.

Notwithstanding the bleating of Barack Obama's "base" -- which has largely believed that the strategic defeat of Al Qaeda just was not possible -- the president has appointed a team that substantially agrees with George W. Bush, that victory over al Qaeda is both desirable and possible. That is to Barack Obama's credit.

A short note on the question of "new" taxes

By TigerHawk at 7/11/2011 01:30:00 PM

In all the back and forth over whether there will be new federal tax increases for the rich, or not, let us all remember that the Obama Administration has already pushed through massive tax increases, most of which will fall on the "rich," that go in to effect in 2013 and thereafter. The Wall Street Journal has a nice summary of them here. So the question is not whether the "rich" will pay new and more taxes, but whether there will be another round of increases on top of those already legislated.

A short note on invasive species

By TigerHawk at 7/11/2011 12:12:00 AM

Regular readers know I was in Hawaii last week. I took a quick detour on the way home to visit my sister in Dillon, Montana, a beautiful five hour drive from Salt Lake City. It so happens she is a biologist, and an expert in invasive species. Unfortunately, we did not discuss this story, which suggests a potentially yummy solution to the problem.

Sunday, July 10, 2011

Public service announcement

By TigerHawk at 7/10/2011 02:48:00 PM

Been traveling, on the road for 11 days now and heading home this afternoon, subject to the apparently many loose ends in the Continental/United merger. But my jet-setting ways -- yup, I'm in the middle seat notwithstanding platinum OnePass status -- will not prevent me from supplying you, my loyal readers, with the link to Duchess Kate's er, "wardrobe malfunction."

The Pleistocene did not depart quietly but in a roller coaster of climatic swings. After the Last Glacial Maximum, of 20,000 to 15,000 years ago, came a warming period known as the Bolling-Allerod Instadial, during which plants, animals and people were able to move northward again. But the Bolling-Allerod warming, which lasted from 15,000 to 12,500 years ago, was a false dawn. A second cold period, particularly challenging because it began so abruptly, established its grip on Eurasia. Within a decade, it had sent temperatures plummeting back to almost glacial levels and soon had converted to tundra the vast forests of northern Europe. This deadly cold snap is known as the Younger Dryas, after a dwarf yellow rose, Dryas octopetala, that grew amid the tundra.

The Younger Dryas lasted for 1,300 years and ended as suddenly as it began, also in a decade or so, according to the cores drilled from through the Greenland ice cap that serve as an archive of global climate. By 11,500 years ago the world was launched on the Holocene, the inter-ice period that still prevails.

Tabulations

My open tabs have congregated, and are virtually begging for spiritual release. Here goes:

Glenn Reynolds reports that the private aviation industry is furious with Barack Obama:

While pundits and politicians haggle over whether alterations in the depreciation schedule of corporate jets will actually have an impact on the deficit, those in the general aviation trenches are furious.

Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association (AOPO) President Craig Fuller told The Daily Caller that Obama’s comments have cast a pall over the industry, causing many who were considering buying a plane to back away from making a purchase.

An Instapundit reader from Wichita thinks that President Obama is "clueless" when it comes to the aircraft industry:

Seems Obama is completely clueless on the aircraft industry…or his aides are. Here where I live in Wichita, KS the aircraft capital of the US we have over 44,000 employed in the aircraft industry in one city of 400,000.

Actually, I think Barack Obama knows exactly who he is bashing. Kansas has six -- count 'em, six -- electoral votes, and Obama didn't win them even when he was popular. He can enrage literally every Kansan and it will cost him exactly nothing.

Allah be damned, now we're going to get "Caylee's Law." Nearly as I can tell, laws named for dead kids are almost always ill-considered and turgid with unintended consequences.

The Obama legacy, in a reductionist video nutshell. His timing with gas prices really was unlucky, but it dovetails so poetically with his ridiculous pandering to the greenies.

Is the problem revenue, or spending? Read the charts and decide for yourself.

Actually, we have a regulation problem. As cogent an argument as you are going to read for lowering the regulatory burden on business. The only problem with it is that a lot of job-crushing regulation is not federal, but state or local and far too petty for national attention. How much more economic activity would we have in New Jersey if, for example, liquor licenses and building permits were not so difficult to obtain?

A nice chart looking at the condition of the world's workers. The tax column is hideously wrong, unfortunately, for it excludes state income tax. My marginal income tax rate, for example, is about 41% (tax-effecting my New Jersey marginal rate).

Gross. There is only one state in the country with an obesity rate under 20% -- Colorado. C'mon people. Eat less, do more. Yes, you are burdened by your previously awesome but now dysfunctional calorie-conserving genes. We know that. But that is no excuse for driving your car everywhere and eating all the food they serve you at Applebee's.

Thursday, July 07, 2011

Homestuck - Descend

Wednesday, July 06, 2011

Eco-theater at Princeton

By TigerHawk at 7/06/2011 10:37:00 AM

Years after it fell in to disuse, Princeton University's Firestone Library is doing away with its card catalog. As an alumnus who did a lot of work in that library and the son of a librarian (indeed, a Firestone librarian), I have warm feelings about that catalog. Years later, I know what the drawers feel like, and I can remember the particular smell of the old cards. None of that, though, kept me from chuckling at this bit of academic "eco theater":

In mid-July, the Firestone card catalog will be dismantled and recycled....

The wooden sides and tops of the cabinets will be taken apart carefully and saved so they can be re-used in paneling or furniture in the renovated building. The fronts of the drawers will be removed and reassembled later in a display wall honoring the history of the library. The cards themselves will be sent out for recycling.

I find it hard to believe that this bit of conservation -- especially the part about saving the wood for use in no doubt custom, site-built "paneling or furniture" -- is not substantially more expensive than conventional demo. But Princeton has lots of money and loyal alumni who will give more (I am among them), so it should not surprise us that the university would spend some of it to this end, if for no other reason than to avoid the inevitable campus controversy over not "recycling" the catalog.

Congressional "productivity": A bug or a feature?

The 112th Congress is on pace to be one of the least productive in recent memory -- as measured by votes taken, bills made into laws, nominees approved. By most of those metrics, this crowd is underperforming even the "do-nothing Congress" of 1948, as President Harry Truman dubbed it. The hot-temper era of President Clinton's impeachment in the 1990s saw more bills become law.

There are many explanations offered in the linked article, but none of them are mine, which is that the two parties are measuring "productivity" differently. There is essentially no new work being done. Rather, the Republicans are trying to repeal programs and spending that the Democrats enacted when they had unassailable majorities in both houses of Congress, and the Democrats are trying to prevent that repeal. Unlike Truman or Clinton, President Obama is acting much more like a Congressional Democrat than a chief executive with an independent agenda, being himself quite content to see the Republicans fail.

Refresh the tree of liberty the post-modern way

By TigerHawk at 7/04/2011 11:54:00 AM

I am enjoying the Fourth of July from Hawaii, one of two states that was once its own country. Some of its citizens might be forgiven for not celebrating American Independence Day, yet they do. It is the idea, rather than fact of the matter. And, of course, the cook-outs, which on the basis of my seven visits here Hawaiians do better than most other Americans.

Yesterday afternoon I was sitting in the Mai Tai Bar at the Royal Hawaiian Hotel drinking, well, a Mai Tai, and reading Ann Coulter's new book (which, by the way, is funnier than her last book -- I was chuckling all afternoon). In a long passage in which she points out that "separation of church and state" is not in the Constitution notwithstanding the claims of liberals to the contrary, Ann trots out a line from Jefferson that got me to thinking:

True, the "separation" phrase comes from a letter written by Thomas Jefferson. He also wrote, "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants," but you don't hear conservatives going around citing the "tree of liberty clause" in the Bill of Rights. Like "the separation of church and state," it's not in the Constitution.

Jefferson was, of course, correct, and the "tree of liberty" idea is as consequentially embedded in our national traditions as "separation of church and state." Most American wars -- not all, but the vast majority -- have been about refreshing the tree of liberty.

There are also non-sanguinary methods for refreshing the tree of liberty, and in today's America they may be the most important. Glenn Reynolds suggests several in this holiday essay, which is well worth reading. To Reynolds' list -- read the essay -- I add this: Support -- or, better, start -- a business that makes your community a more pleasant place to be. Is a local restaurant struggling to get permission for outdoor seating? Does your town building inspector take forever to issue a permit? Do the local regulators pay more attention to the anti-business screamers than the silent majority that believes that new businesses make the community better?

In many communities, a small change in the calculations of local politicians would make it much easier for new businesses to start and grow. The next time the activists oppose a new enterprise, building, or opportunity at a town council meeting, refresh the tree of liberty by standing up against the enemies of progress.

A few pictures from my phone camera

I'm on Oahu for the better part of a week with the TH Daughter, and am beginning to pile up pictures from this trip and the weekend in Salt Lake City. A few of them made the cut...

The ride from Park City, Utah to Salt Lake City, Friday morning last. I love the colors and the lighting -- pretty good for a cell phone.

Now in Hawaii, I went for a run early this morning and at about 7 am grabbed this view of Waikiki from the east.

Your Blogger at breakfast at Surf Lanai, one of the restaurants in the Royal Hawaiian Hotel.

We went body surfing in the late morning at Sandy Beach and I took a few pictures with the big camera, but I am too tired to download them and turn them in to a blog post. After cleaning up and such we went to the Honolulu Hard Rock Cafe, which is quite near our hotel. On the way up, I took a picture of the guitars suspended from the ceiling.

And, finally, a "Scratch Mai Tai" at the eponymous bar in the Royal Hawaiian.

Iran's war

Iran's elite military unit, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, has transferred lethal new munitions to its allies in Iraq and Afghanistan in recent months, according to senior U.S. officials, in a bid to accelerate the U.S. withdrawals from these countries.

The Revolutionary Guard has smuggled rocket-assisted exploding projectiles to its militia allies in Iraq, weapons that have already resulted in the deaths of American troops, defense officials said. They said Iranians have also given long-range rockets to the Taliban in Afghanistan, increasing the insurgents' ability to hit U.S. and other coalition positions from a safer distance.

Casus belli, for sure. I tend to believe that it is not in our interests to attack Iran -- at least not right now -- but it is important to remember that if we did our war would be just and lawful.

Gasoline, smasholine

Friday, July 01, 2011

Jumping to conclusions on Dominique Strauss-Kahn and a note about the legal system

By TigerHawk at 7/01/2011 09:59:00 AM

The legal case against Dominique Strauss-Kahn is collapsing, according to the New York Times, and so perhaps is the moral case. There has been and will be plenty of hashing and gnashing of this, but I have two quick items.

First, I was to some degree a DSK conclusion-jumper, and am sorry about that. A good reminder that even in today's transparent world the facts sometimes take some time to emerge.

UPDATE: A reader emails: “If DSK is innocent, and what happened was either consented to or just ‘bad sex’ (as Ann Althouse would say), then I think it’s an instructive example of the power imbalance between men and women in the legal setting. Also, a powerful example of what a class-neutral legal system we have.”

There is much to argue about in both points, but they are true enough to provoke a good discussion. I'll leave the "gender/power imbalance" for y'all to hash out in the comments while I go about my day. With regard to the purported class-neutrality of the legal system, there are at least two trends that run in opposite directions. On the one hand, the prosecutorial populism of the last twenty years or so (witness the extended campaigns against Wall Streeters, starting with Rudy Giuliani's perp walks and the legal war against Michael Milken), has resulted in a great many very high profile prosecutions of the super-rich. American prosecutors, being future and sometimes actual politicians, love busting rich folks, even if they have a weak case. On the other hand, an ordinary American confronting the legal system has a much greater chance of success if he or she has the financial resources to mount a vigorous defense. These two conditions manifestly co-exist and muddle any general conclusion about the aggregate "class-neutrality" or lack thereof in the American criminal justice system.